Washboard Road
This rutted track with pot holes and cuts, makes for rough travel. Perhaps I should have chosen a shorter course, taken the highway. Out on this spur of lonely landscape with wire fence and barren fields, two coyotes lope from cover, a raptor watches. Bouncing on the gravel I wonder at my choices, of wayward […]
Keeping Faith
Low clouds cross the valley in a dry southerly wind, the sun an occasional guest during months of rain feeding glaciers, mountain rivers, vast estuaries rimming the coastline. We depend on what we suffer, aspiring to heaven as we slog through puddles, our heads hooded against the sky. Bending with the wind we find suppleness, […]
Country Roads
When I think of America, the US that is, I think of John Denver and Country Roads. And just to show how out of touch I am when I think of that song I am warmed. I know about Vietnam and that gash of a wall, the hollowing of our midlands and desolate homeless camps, […]
Grace to Her Becoming
Beneath the weight of snow the Earth rests but does not sleep. In root and caves beyond number tribes of spring begin to drum, waters destined for rivers flow, and in the depths of her abundance the burgeoning of new life. Layer after layer the white blanket covers Earth’s repose, winter peace the grace to […]
Winter Well
South the sun rises on winter mornings, slanted low in bright light and pale orange. Trees sleep in rooted beds, the sky left to crows. Putting down the cup of fear I turn to the well within. When the door is closed, the window shut, a path opens through dark earth, below the tangle of […]
Spirit Talons
Cold comes the morning with light rain and gentle breeze. Strong winds have laid down but will rise again, the ocean stirred by the growing pulse of winter. My animal body layers on clothes, circles the earth bed to rest in darkness while I stay above, spirit talons grabbing the high fir for a view […]
Time to Live
Smoke rises from a chimney into the cold December sky. Desire, too, lifts above the earth like a towering evergreen, but the land calls from below: discover yourself wrapped in elk hide, stone-faced and sober. Stir the cauldron, sing the ancient songs, let the drumbeat of mother’s heart guide you in knowing wild horse and […]
Sisters of Peace
The need to fight, to oppose, is older than red rock hills rising from the desert landscape. Springs of violence swell from a righteous vein to spread upon the dry ground soaking evening’s quiet. A crescent moon softens, the dipper points to north star but trouble’s impulse continues. Across the stony ground and abroad the […]
Within the Womb
Hidden now the green life and pulsing energy. Gone to root the life of trees, as bears sleep in burrowed caves. Single bird song breaks the quiet, calling out her joy to the cold gray sky. Where I go a greater light within the darkness, the treasure of winter’s rest curing my impatience, as beauty […]
World Anew
A flight of crows silhouette the morning. Red skies to the east speak of coming rain though the air above is clear and blue as cold snaps the power lines. The old earth claws for purchase yet the turning reaches to the roots of trees, a new heaven poised over the horizon, beginning even now […]
Tending to the Birth
The comfort of peace salves the weary heart, restores the soul long absent from the green earth. Quietly we rise to the morning ever new, with words of thanks. Tending to the dark night’s birth we let the angel find room in the home we tend as place for the eternal. […]
Through the Dark Night
The valley lies in darkness, the earth pulsing with great mystery. Trees vibrate in this pulse as do the widespread seas. Deserts shift in waves, animals move in migration. On the outer rim the earth turns quickly while at the center there is stillness and a silence reaching through stone, sand and water. We may […]
Winter Solstice
Out of the unseen headlights crawl, carving darkness into makeshift pieces above the breathing earth. The bare branched trees drink from forgiveness in the wet rooted ground, the ceremony of renewal continuing below, gathering strength during long winter nights for the rising to come. […]
Time to Remember
Sun breaks far to the south barely surfacing on the horizon, the earth starved for light as solstice approaches. Forlorn as a whining motor the trudging path meanders, seeking any truth left in the crater of the godless. I recall her innocence, the pale green eyes and delicate skin inviting the surrender of my testament. […]
Signaling Grace
Rain clouds sift across the valley in the late days of autumn. Stripped bare like the plum tree I lean into the weather, welcoming the changes wrought once more on the yielding earth. The spreading fear of death crowds the space for life, yet around us the earth surrenders its green leaves and soft grass […]